Missouri Couple Sentenced to Die In Murder of Their Daughter, 16

Published: December 20, 1991

ST. LOUIS, Dec. 19—
A fundamentalist Muslim couple were sentenced to death today for killing their 16-year-old daughter, whose screams for mercy were recorded secretly by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Zein Isa, 61 years old, and his wife, Maria, 48, were sentenced to die by injection for the 1989 stabbing death of the girl, Tina Isa, at their apartment.

The bureau had planted listening devices in the apartment, reportedly as part of an investigation into whether Mr. Isa was involved with the Palestine Liberation Organization.

"If my father is sent to death because he is a Muslim, then he is proud of himself to die that way," the dead girl's sister, Fatima Isa, screamed after the sentences were handed down by Circuit Judge Charles A. Shaw.

A jury that convicted the couple Oct. 25 had recommended the death penalty.

Mr. Isa, a Palestinian, is a naturalized United States citizen, and his wife is Brazilian. Lawyers for the couple said the convictions, which relied heavily on a secretly recorded audio tape of the killing, would be appealed.

The seven-minute tape of the girl's death on Nov. 6, 1989, was central to the trial. Federal agents recorded the killing with electronic bugging devices hidden in the family's home, though they were not monitoring the tape at the time, the authorities said.

Also recorded and introduced as evidence in the trial were telephone conversations in which Mr. Isa discussed with his other daughters the rebellious, behavior of his youngest daughter.

Mr. Isa testified in Arabic and through a translator that he stabbed his daughter when she demanded $5,000 and came at him with a kitchen knife. "When I said, 'You are going to die tonight,' she already had the knife in her hand," Isa said. "I then directed the knife toward her to stab her until she fell down."

Some jurors had wept upon hearing the tape of the girl struggling for her life with screams and gasping and moaning. On the tape, Mr. Isa shouted, in Arabic: "Die! Die quickly! Die, my daughter, die!"